Craft Advent 4: Decorated Pegs

Todays Guest Post comes thanks to Eithne, of Cardroom Delights. Eithne is one of my younger sisters, and, as such, I can reveal stories of epic fights, epic hilarity and epic sleepwalking… but, nawww, I won’t, Eit, I promise 😉 Eithne started her blog a couple of years ago to document her card-making journey, and has become a member of Design Teams, including her own Challenge Blog: Craft for the Craic (what a great name!)

Here Eithne has created a tutorial of these super-cute Decorated Christmas Pegs (so looking forward to a few of these in my stocking, lovely sister, hint hint!!)

Hello and hope your first Thursday in December is going well 🙂 Can you believe it is Christmas month, woohooo!!! Time to go mad and do LOTS of Christmas crafting 😉
Lately I am a bit addicted to decorating pegs. My local hardware shop are probably wondering why I’m buying so many clothes pegs (pins) in this weather!! 😉 Here is a step by step tutorial of some decorated pegs (pins):

What you will need

For dying the pegs:
Clothes pegs (pins)
Food colouring (the liquid one is best)
Vinegar
Boiling water
An old jar or container to withstand boiling water
GLOVES! (especially if you do not like the inked finger-nail look 😉 )

Step 2
Make sure you are working on an old work surface, or else cover up the counter. Place one tablespoon of vinegar and 2-3 tablespoons of food colouring into the jar, give it a stir and then add boiling water.

Step 3
Carefully place all your pegs into the jars, any splashes can stain your or your furniture and burn, so beware!!

Step 4
After a few hours (or a few minutes depending on how well the colour took to your pegs!) place the pegs to dry on some kitchen paper.

It is worth noting that the food colour does not always take well to the peg, or come out the colour it is supposed to. The sample of pegs drying above was (left) brown and (right) purple. They ended up as green (left) and pink (right). If you are not too concerned for the colours, it is a bit of fun waiting to see what colour they turn out. Also note that when the pegs are dry the colour may be slightly different.

This is how the red food colouring turned out:Step 5
When your pegs are dry, if you like, match them up to a similar colour shaded peg. Assemble the peg back together, mind your fingers and nails!! 😉
The spring in the picture below was stretched too much when taking it apart, so to remedy it you can switch sides for the ‘arms’ of the spring, so it will be a tighter fit.

Step 6
Be prepared! Heat your glue gun and have as much of your embellishment in place.

Step 7
For my felt star, I was able to place the glue in the middle and it stuck the star and teddy bear. Press down on your embellishment for a few minutes, to ensure it is stuck!Voila! Now you need to make an army of them 😉

I designed and printed some slips to attach them to and placed them in a cellophane bag – perfect for gifting someone this Christmas!

Enjoy 🙂

I hope you enjoyed the tutorial and give it a go yourself! It is great fun and very easy to do.

Oh, these are lovely!In another life, I’m all crafty and there’s no TV in my house, and my kids sit quietly with me and we spend all day making lots of pretty things. That’s the dream!What a great idea-I’ll be checking back all through December for ideas. Who knows, sometimes dreams do come true after all!